Today’s financial task is to identify my priorities!
(Given that I just had an intellectual impulse-buy, I probably should ha
ve had this be my day 4 challenge…oops!)
*but* what I will do instead is go through this day 5 challenge and see whether this impulse-buy was indeed as important as it felt when I decided to hit, “check out.”
For this task, I’m required/ strongly encouraged to make a mental list of my needs, choose 2 loves that I can commit to for the next six months, then jot down those loves to share with my accountability partner. I’m gonna go ahead & write out my needs, too, just for consistency!
According to the Budgetnista, there are four questions I should be asking myself before a purchase: do I need it? do I love it? do I like it? do I want it?
These questions are interesting because for some time I’ve been thinking about the right “to want.” Even when there are certain things we can’t technically afford (though can pay for), when is there still space to want, particularly, considering things that require a monetary transaction. What is the discernment around that? When is it ok to say “yes, this plate of metaphoric comfort food is probably not my healthiest choice, but I’m going to know that and still let myself have it.” I’ve been adopting the everything in moderation, if at all principle (I hadn’t originally called this a principle but I guess it is!). I rarely do big purchases unless I think it’s necessary for my life now or in some random part of the future….anyway.
What I will say is that the Budgetnista makes a pretty decent point that sometimes we tend to think about our likes and wants more than we do our needs and loves. I’d like to say that’s not true, and to some extent it’s not. But, when I sit and think about the cost associated with things I love, I can carry some guilt about whether that purchase was legitimate or not.
To give some context, here’s a few of my needs and two of my loves:
Needs: I need to be able to pay my bills, put gas in my car, to pay my rent, to buy groceries, to have clothes for work, to contribute to my savings, to take care of car maintenance (purpose)
Loves (only 2 as instructed): Travel and self-development goodies (passion)
I’d like to do some more traveling this season, mostly if it’s linked to work. To make that a reality, I’m gonna research some conferences for 2017 and see which ones I think are most useful to go to. I could consider 2 local and 1 abroad and explore other funding avenues besides my income. Are there any that are human rights and wellness/healing justice related? That’d be pretty awesome.
One of my takeaways from today’s email was “if you don’t need it, or love it, then you should consider leaving it [because] spending money on likes or wants, means you’ll have less money for purchases that truly improve the quality of your life.”
Here for it!!!
So, it seems that my intellectual impulse buy to purchase Spanish lessons through Pimsleur.com at a discount rate was more of an investment – linked to my passion for language, my identity, love of travel, and self-development – than an impulse buy. I learned a huge chunk of Portuguese using Pimsleur and would highly, highly recommend it for folks loo
king to take a language class on the go and on the fly.
I’m feeling pretty fortified and affirmed in this moment. A large chunk of my relationship to Spanish is based in fear, so there are levels to why picking it back up is important to me. Plus, I still want my dual citizenship (more anti-fear work required) but that’s for another post.
Love,
MFM
moon.flower.medicine 